Tuesday was a much quieter day around Tar Heel football after absolute roster chaos the prior two days for the team. The team lost ten players, including eight on the defensive side of the football, in that 48-hour span and late last night, they added an eleventh to the list.
As first reported by On3 Sports’ Matt Zeintz, redshirt freshman cornerback Dontae Balfour has entered the transfer portal after two seasons with the Tar Heels. Balfour started the season opener for this season against Florida A&M and was picked apart, allowing five of his eight targets to be caught for 85 yards and a touchdown and a 138.0 quarterback ranking against. He did not see the field again defensively after that and played just 16 snaps on special teams in the last 12 games of this season. Balfour finishes his career having played 90 snaps between defense and special teams in five games, piling up six total tackles, all of which came in that Florida A&M game.
Balfour may not have been a major part of what the Tar Heels did throughout the season after those struggles in the opener, but this is another blow to the depth. He becomes the fourth cornerback to enter the portal in the last three days, joining Tony Grimes, Ladaeson DeAndre Hollins and Tymir Brown, which has taken a major toll on the room. The good news is that the foursome of Storm Duck, DeAndre Boykins, Lejond Cavazos and Marcus Allen appear as if they are set to return. The problem is, only two other scholarship corners are set to return, Obi Egbuna and Tayon Halloway. They will add three true freshmen to the mix in the early signing period with Tre Miller, Kaleb Cost and Ty Adams, but there should be no question that they need to get at least one cornerback from the portal. It seems like the staff knows that and they are already looking at a couple of different names.
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